


hymns of praise from land and sea.

by lovelyorbent



Series: invictus. [6]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Hong Kong, Light Angst, Multi, Yancy Becket Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-09 01:04:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4327923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelyorbent/pseuds/lovelyorbent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>there's a party in hong kong to commemorate pitfall.  yancy's sort of high, herc and mako are holding up, and max wears a bow tie for fifteen seconds of screen time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hymns of praise from land and sea.

**Author's Note:**

> there's really no point to this at all, i just wanted to write it. mostly cutesy, sometimes not. also: i can't type the word 'newton' without first typing 'netwon' eighteen times. i did not even read this over so let me know if there are any glaring typos. i take no pride in my work is the thing you should learn from this.
> 
> title is from the poem 'eternal father, strong to save' by william whiting. it's also known as the navy hymn.
> 
> lms if you're only here for the bow tie on the dog, comment if you're angry there wasn't more dog in bow tie

Hong Kong a year after Operation Pitfall is decked out in blue, green, silver, and red, streamers decorating the streets, hanging above the dancing people who fill every square inch of the city.  The music pumping through most parts of the city isn’t Chinese, but then neither are most of the people celebrating—Yancy suspects this is quickly going to become a global holiday instead of a one-time anniversary celebration.

All the living Jaeger pilots—not that there are many of them, but enough to warrant this meeting—are crammed into Marshal Hercules Hansen’s hotel room.  Yancy doesn’t really need to be here—in fact, he and Herc have already covered his role for the evening, which is to always turn media attention back to his brother and the PPDC when possible—but he wants to be, and at this point he’s Herc’s unofficial second-in-command anyway, so nobody complains.

The Gipsy Danger Dream Team, as Yancy calls them when he wants to make his brother punch him, arrive five minutes late, Raleigh looking apologetic and Mako with embarrassment in her eyes.  “Sorry,” his brother says. “Wasn’t looking at the time.”

“Too busy staring into each other’s eyes?” Yancy drawls, grinning.

“Shut up, Yancy,” Raleigh tells him, but he’s not denying it, which means it’s true.

Yancy snorts. “You two look like you’re going to prom,” he informs his brother, instead of shutting up.  “Does your tie match her dress?  Where’s the corsage, asshole?”

“Beckets, be quiet,” Herc finally intervenes, and the attention of the room turns to him. Yancy sees Raleigh’s head vanish from the back of the room and glances between all the legs between them to see him kneeling at Mako’s feet, helping her adjust a shoe.

He tucks that away to tease Raleigh about later.

“All right,” Herc says, “Here’s the orders: Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to; be fucking polite when you are; don’t be controversial unless you can’t help it; look pretty, make nice, and don’t make fucking fools out of yourself.  I don’t want any extra paperwork at the end of the night. Kapiche?”

“Yes, sir,” the room choruses. It’s not much of a chorus, since there’s only six people present.

“Great. Now get the fuck out and be there early so you can look happy about your heroes entering.  Becket, Mori, stay.”

“Sir…” Raleigh starts as the room empties and Max comes trotting out to say hello to Mako, panting into her hand as she bends down with a grin to pet him.  “Is Max wearing a bow tie?”

“Thank your idiot brother,” Herc snorts, and Yancy grins, angelically as he can.  “You get going too, Yancy, I meant the Becket of the evening.”

“You’re my ride, Herc,” Yancy says, sitting down on the couch instead of heading out. “Alison and Tendo’re already gone and I assume the PR advised you to have the Dynamic Duo here arrive right on time and together.”

Herc rolls his eyes. “Whatever.”

For a moment he sounds so much like Chuck that Yancy nearly mocks him the same way he’d do Raleigh. But he stops the words before they get out of his mouth, because he’s not a complete dick.  “You two, like he said, arrive on time and together and don’t trip over your feet on the way in.  You,” he points to Raleigh, “I don’t care if you and your brother are near each other if you _behave_ , this isn’t some afterparty.”

Yancy smirks. He’s already gotten this talk. “No playing cards with the journalists this time, kiddo.”

“Do you think I carry a pack around with me?”

“I know you do,” Yancy points out.

“I had him leave it in the room,” Mako tells all of them, standing.  Raleigh bends slightly to give her his arm as support, because he’s fucking adorable like that, Yancy guesses, even though she clearly doesn’t need it, even on those heels.

“Thank you,” Herc says.

“Shame,” Yancy sighs.

The marshal disappears into the bedroom to get changed, muttering something under his breath about needing a drink.

So Yancy carefully bends down to grab a bottle of whiskey off the bottom shelf of the cabinet next to the door and pours a finger of it into a hotel-provided coffee mug. “What?” he says when he catches Raleigh raising his eyebrows.  “He won’t survive the night if all he has in him is the fruity champagne they’ll be serving.”

“You’re whipped.”

“You’re one to talk.” Yancy should know better, as this only results in Raleigh giving Mako an adoring glance. “Disgusting,” he comments mildly, swirling the drink in the mug carefully.

“I think he is jealous,” Mako says very seriously.

“Bite me,” Yancy tells her as cheerily as he can as Herc reappears in dress blues, looking miserable.

“No biting,” he says as he takes the mug out of Yancy’s hand and knocks it back in one go. “I’m promoting you for that.”

“No, you’re not,” Yancy counters easily.

“No. I’m not.  Let’s get going.  You two, I’ll see you at 1900.”

“How’d you get away with dress blues when I have to wear the monkey suit?” Yancy complains as he’s struggling into the car.  The leg can’t exactly pull itself up, so he has to put some real force into it.

“I’m the Marshal, I can do whatever I want,” Herc answers, which is a dirty lie and they both know it. “And you’re not even wearing a tie, so quit nagging.”

“I didn’t want to tempt myself to use it as a noose.”

Herc snorts. The car passes under a massive banner that bears careful paintings of Crimson Typhoon and her pilots.

“Is this a fucking ballroom?” Yancy asks when they walk in.

“I’m not dancing,” Herc says immediately, sounding grim.

“I promise not to step on your toes—”

“No.”

A camera flashes in their faces.  It’s going to be a great picture, Yancy thinks, because Herc will look annoyed and Yancy will look lazy and bored.  He might hate the press, but he takes some joy in taking shitty pictures that will end up all over the internet with “lol” written under them.

They split up.

Yancy’s dodging a gossip column reporter when his brother walks in.  Mako is immediately accosted by fashion columnists, which is funny because Yancy happens to know that her shoes are a hundred percent genuine ordered-on-the-internet.

Raleigh dutifully stays with his copilot through the storm of reporters, but once they’re through it he heads straight for Yancy, Mako leading him by three steps even though this is clearly not her idea.  “Where’s the Marshal?” he asks.

Yancy jerks his head over his shoulder to where Herc is being mobbed by overeager journalists. “I was going to rescue him, but I’m just not that noble.”

Raleigh rolls his eyes. “Isn’t that part of your job or something?”

“I believe my job this evening is to look pretty and speak as little as possible,” Yancy replies airily, sipping his champagne.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. You’re a dick. Where’s Tendo?”

Yancy points across the room, where he is absolutely not going to go because he doesn’t want to look too friendly with the nice married couple that he is definitely not sleeping with. “By the way, if they brought the kid, you’re watching him overnight.”

Raleigh’s nose wrinkles. It’s sort of cute, really. “Uh, no.”

“Raleigh, I don’t think you understand.  Take a look at the dress Alison is wearing and tell me I can let that slide.”

The dress is red. It splits on one of its sides to the top of Alison’s thigh, and it’s strapless.  Perhaps Yancy is an easy man to please, but there are very few things he wouldn’t do for a woman who’s holding several yards of fabric up with her breasts.

Raleigh looks across the room at her and sighs.  “Fine, I’ll watch the kid.”

The camera flashes as Yancy pumps his fist in victory.

“They’re going to turn you into a meme,” Raleigh informs him, looking like he’s an inch from doubling over laughing.  Mako puts her hand on his shoulder and he calms visibly.

“It’s about time,” Yancy replies seriously.  “Herc beat me to it.”

“Herc looks funnier than you.”

“I’m sending you on another press tour,” Herc says darkly, appearing over Raleigh’s shoulder. Yancy sips his champagne again as Raleigh jumps out of his skin.

“Jesus Christ.”

“I’m not as nice as him, son.”

“You need a drink,” Yancy says.

“Don’t need to tell me that.”

By the time Herc is truly falling apart at the seams—exasperation and probably, Yancy thinks, a not insubstantial amount of grief, considering Chuck Hansen died a year ago today—Mako is making a speech that’s half inspiring and half eulogy and Yancy figures it’s time to step in.  “Hey. Aussie Aussie Aussie.”

“Belt it, Becket.”

“If I left you a hip flask of whiskey in the bathroom would that get me a promotion?”

Herc looks visibly relieved for a moment, but then he tightens up his expression again. “No.  I shouldn’t.  But you keep that for after and you’re driving back.”

“Absolutely, sir.” Yancy’s mouth is twitching.

“And I’ll spare you the debrief until the plane tomorrow.”

Yancy looks in the direction of where Herc’s eyes are pointing and sees Tendo and Alison. He wonders exactly how glaringly obvious he was when he saw that dress.  “You’re a godsend, sir.  I already asked Raleigh to take Gabe overnight if they brought him.”

“One, don’t ‘sir’ me, we’ve talked about this.  Two, you cannot hand a kid off to a sitter overnight, as much of a pity as I know that is. Three, they didn’t bring him, your brother can rest easy.”

Yancy kisses him on the cheek, entirely because he knows there are cameras on them, and grins at the flash, ducking away before Herc can grab him.

He runs into the two constantly fighting scientists halfway to the front of the room, and steps around them as fast as he can, because he works with them too much already and he can’t stand either of them for more than three minutes at a time unless he’s getting paid to do it.  By this point he knows their names, but he still thinks of them as “the squirrely one” and “grandpa” most of the time—mostly because every time he has to work with them they’re annoying enough to make him realize why Herc always delegates scientist duty to him.

“Theoretical physics is _boring_ , Hermann,” says the squirrely one emphatically, waving his glass so violently that some champagne hits him in the wrist and rolls down his arm to his pushed-back sleeves. “I can’t put my hands in theoretical physics—”

Yancy can see the aneurysm coming on grandpa, so he steps in between them and puts a hand on each shoulder. “Ladies, take it home or keep it down, my future sister-in-law is talking.”

He’s a good mediator for these two.

Mostly because they act like children and he’s good with children.  Probably he should be more patient, but he needs about four more glasses of champagne tonight for that to happen.  “Yancy!” Newt says.

“Captain Becket,” the other one follows, enunciating the title.  “My apologies—”

Yancy squeezes their shoulders with the hands he’s got on them and moves away.  “Just keep it down.  Eyes on your heroes.”

He spends the next two minutes watching Raleigh as Mako’s wrapping up the speech. Mostly he looks just as dopey and in love as usual, but from time to time he gets this pinched look on his face that Yancy starts decoding with all the force of thirty-one years of experience with the kid.

He’s tapping his foot—impatient about something.  Fixedly attentive on Mako—lips pressed together—yeah, he wants to kiss her.

Yancy smiles.

“Boo,” Tendo says, drawing up behind his left shoulder.

When Yancy completely fails to jump and instead simply turns around, one dark eyebrow goes up. “Were you expecting me?”

“Actually, I was expecting an irate Australian, so good to see you, Choi.  Yes, I am coming over tonight.”

“Good, because you’re going to love what Alison is wearing under that.”

Yancy stares at him, trying to look unperturbed.  “Do not give me a hard on right now.”

“It’s red.”

“God, I love her in red.”

“And lacy.”

“Dude—”

“Okay, okay.” Tendo’s quiet for about three seconds while Mako’s getting down from the platform, and then he elbows Yancy. “She looks great. Alison wants to know where she got the dress.”

“Alison can ask,” Yancy says. “I’ll get her VIP backstage tickets, or she could just go up a floor and over two rooms in the hotel and get ahold of her that way.  Where’s the kid?”

“Back with his grandma in Anchorage,” Tendo answers, crossing his arms over his chest.   “Does Raleigh’s tie match her shoes?”

Yancy squints. “I thought he was going for an off-blue match with the dress, but yeah, it does.  They’re so cute.”

“Yep. You’re about to lose the bet.”

“I have two more weeks for him to propose in.  Just wait.” At this point he’s completely sure that Raleigh will not be proposing in that time period, because both of them still insist that they are not getting married.  But is holding onto the ghost of a hope that he’s going to get to be somebody else’s best man.  “Anyway, I’m still going to win the kids bet.  I think I’m changing my stance on age, though.  Going to up the range to one through twelve.”

“Nope. That takes up Alison’s whole range. You’re staying one through ten.”

Yancy groans.

Tendo grins at him.

“Aaaand I can’t kiss you in public, so go away,” Yancy concludes, reaching over to tug on the ever-present bow tie. “Raleigh is totally throwing away his opportunity for disgusting PDA.”  Actually, Raleigh isn’t even dancing with Mako, even though the quartet has been playing since the end of her speech, which is a complete tragedy, in Yancy’s opinion, because she looks amazing, and looking amazing should be rewarded. “Okay, skedaddle. Dance with your wife. I’ll catch you guys at some point,” he says, clapping Tendo on the shoulder and heading in the direction of the cluster of microphones shoved in the Gipsy Danger Dream Team’s face.

He waits dutifully until some of the reporters are off chasing other targets—Herc, for example, who is probably nigh homicidal by now, or An Yuna and Pang So-Yi, who at this point in the evening are likely in dire need of mediation, which he will get to later—and then shoulders his way in to hand Mako a glass of champagne and give Raleigh his empty one, because what are brothers for?  “Hey, kids.  You two gonna dance?”

Mako looks at Raleigh. Raleigh looks at her at the same time and then gets a deer in the headlights look, which Yancy reads as _No, I’ll step all over her feet and she won’t love me anymore_. The truth is he’s not that bad of a dancer, but he _is_ a nervous idiot, so Yancy gets in between them and slips his arm through Mako’s, stealing the champagne glass back and putting it in Raleigh’s other hand.

“Hope you don’t mind if I borrow your shining star,” he tells Raleigh, and Mako stays firmly put when he tugs her towards the floor, looking at him with steely eyes. “And do _you_ mind if I borrow you, Miss Mori?”

“No,” she says delicately, and becomes less of an immovable object almost instantly. “But ask me first next time.”

“How do you anchor your feet like that in heels?” Yancy asks.  “I’d say you have to teach me, but I don’t think I know where to get a pair that would fit me.”

“Balance. And it’s more a hip lock than an anchor. If you had let go or pulled slightly harder I would have fallen.”

Yancy twirls her under his arm and gets a hand on her waist.  “I’m afraid I can only sort of waltz.”

“This isn’t a waltz,” Mako points out, which may or may not be true; Yancy has no idea how to count beats or how many are in a waltz.

“I wonder if we’re Drift compatible,” he muses.

Mako does that blinking thing that means she wants to roll her eyes but doesn’t want to be undignified. “Let me lead.  Okay?”

“Just tell me where to put my hands.”

She puts one on her shoulder and takes one in her hand, then puts her still-free one around his waist. He resists the urge to find Raleigh and stick his tongue out at him.  “Do everything I do backwards.”  As if it’s that simple.  ”I won’t let you run into anyone.”

“That’s comforting,” Yancy says breezily, and watches her feet as she moves so he can mirror the motion. After he’s sort of following her moves—it’s not a box step, so he’s out of his depth, but he can certainly keep replicating it—she starts to move away from the patch of floor they’ve been occupying. “Pentecost taught you this?”

She nods, but her mouth tightens a little and he realizes that it is also _his_ death anniversary.

What a cheerful occasion.

“And I learned with Chuck Hansen as my partner.”

Yancy winces. “Should I go now?”

“That won’t be necessary, Captain,” Mako tells him, turning them both.  He catches a quick glimpse of Tendo and Alison with that red dress sweeping out behind her.  “But thank you for the offer.”

“You’re my future sister-in-law, you can call me Yancy.”

“Raleigh and I are not getting married.”

“But we already know you’re stunning in white.”

Mako steps neatly on his foot. The one that still exists. “Ow.”

“Do not be annoying.”

“You’d have more success telling him not to breathe,” Raleigh says as they sweep by him. It’s sort of weird how in tune he is with a conversation that he can’t have heard more than fifteen seconds of, but then again, he _is_ Drift compatible with both of them.

“He’s just mad because we’re dancing,” Yancy informs her.

“I do not think that is true.”

“Yeah, well, who’s known him longer?”

Mako blinks at him, completely unimpressed by him being a child.  He knows he’s said this before to virtually everyone he knows, but he so, _so_ approves of her.  “I have been in his head more recently.”

A year ago, Yancy would have probably felt a little sick to his stomach about that. In fact, it’s entirely possible that he would have popped more pain pills to get away from that reality—which, okay, he can’t do tonight, because he’s already well over his recommended dose just on anticipation of being in pain at some point.  He’s a little bit over his jealousy, though—enough to grin about the fact that Mako’s sunk to his level.  “Wow, Mako.  That hurts. Step on my foot again, why don’t you?”

Mako raises her eyebrow and then does.

“Ow.”

“You asked.”

“I can’t believe you’re marrying my brother.”

“I am not marrying Raleigh,” Mako says for what has to be the hundredth time.  “And while we are on the subject, I know there is a bet running. I suggest it disappear in the next few days.”

She’s not even threatening him, exactly, but he can’t help but smile.

Yancy observes the room while she takes him for another turn about the room, silently. The crowd is mostly unchanging—it moves, but the people he’s watching are mostly easy to find because they’re surrounded by reporters.  The empty platform Mako had used for her speech is going to remain that way until Herc gets up and dismisses the party; now it’s strangely open, no one sitting or standing anywhere near it.  The walls are draped with cloth—Yancy had vetoed pictures of the heroes on them before even bothering to pass on the list of suggestions to Herc, crossed it out so dark he doubts Herc even could have read it.  They’re in the news enough tonight, and their faces are painted on enough banners—Mako and Herc aren’t going to have to look them in the face in here, at least.

Herc’s exact words when Yancy’d passed on the request to make a speech were, “I’m not writing five pages about my son for a room full of people who didn’t know him.  They’ve already got the story.  I’ll give the room fifteen words.  You can write ‘em.  Now get out of my room.”

The fifteen words Yancy wrote are as follows: “Thank you for coming to honour the anniversary of Operation Pitfall with us.  Good night.”

He thinks it’s very Herc.

Mako lets go of his waist and pushes him towards the side of the floor.  “You,” she says, “Are not paying attention. And we are not Drift compatible.”

“I think you need to hit me with a stick a couple of times before we decide—”

“She’s gone,” Herc says, putting a hand on his shoulder as Mako walks away, skirting the dance floor back towards his brother.  “And you’re doing all of the lip service we end up with when the rags print that we’re gay.”

“Why bother denying it when you could dance with me?”  Yancy holds out a hand.  “I know the woman’s part now, thanks to Miss Mori—”

“Over my dead body. Go socialize.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Yancy redirects reporters and schmoozes with UN members for maybe another half hour before he realizes he’s directing them towards a couple that is no longer present on the floor. If they’re fucking in a bathroom, he’s going to kill them, he thinks, as he starts answering questions himself. For one, abandoning him to probably his least favourite job is not cool, for two, he has had many conversations with Raleigh about how closets are infinitely more logical.

When they don’t reappear for another half hour, he decides it’s time to do something. “Give me a moment, ma’am,” he says, more politely than he’s ever been before in his life, probably, to the woman he’s currently talking with.

Then he pulls out his phone.

 _Raleigh, if you two are having sex right now, I will never forgive you_.

The reply comes as soon as he’s sent it.

_She needs a breather yancy shut up_

Well, that’s a bad sign. Yancy shifts his weight to his good leg—the bad one is starting to ache, even though he’s more than a little high right now.

_Do I need to tag you out, or are you handling everything okay?_

_Were good just be distracting for like five more minutes_ _ok_

Yancy puts his phone away and turns back to the woman in front of him.  Only so much you can do for grief, he figures.  Giving them five minutes will be fine.  He makes a mental note to check in at the end of the night, with both of them.

The end of the night comes much sooner than he’d bargained, but not quite soon enough for it not to get way too fucking hot in the room—by the time Herc gets up to dismiss everyone who’s still hanging around, Yancy’s taken off his blazer and loosened his collar in the absence of a tie to remove.  He’s pretty sure there are approximately way too fucking many pictures of him removing clothing in public on the internet right now, but he can deal with that tomorrow.

“Thanks for honouring the anniversary of Operation Pitfall with us.  Good night.”

“That was only twelve words,” Yancy informs him when he climbs down.  “Stick to the script, Herc.”

“Yeah, I didn’t even read your script,” Herc tells him gruffly, clapping him on the shoulder and breezing past him.

Yancy snorts, then goes looking for his brother, who has been pretty much attached to Mako’s hip since they reemerged.  “How’s everything in paradise?” he asks them, and Mako’s eyes visibly go cool, turning to Raleigh.

Raleigh gives him a Look.

He scrambles to cover for the fact that he’d been really sure Raleigh wouldn’t text him without the permission of the love of his life.  “Herc’s about ready to kill himself, you guys hold up under fire okay?”

“Yes,” Mako says, and leaves it at that.

Raleigh gives him a helpless glance over her shoulder.

“All right. Then you kids get home. Those shoes have to be killing you by now. And tell the driver to avoid Sham Mong. I hear the traffic’s barely moving.”

The truth is, he had this street marked in his head to avoid period, for Herc’s benefit, because it’s the one the Striker Eureka banner is hanging over, with Pentecost’s and Hansen Jr.’s faces painted on it sky high.  Raleigh knows this, he thinks, because of the look of understanding in his eyes, but Herc doesn’t, he knows, and if Mako doesn’t, all the better.

“No,” she says. “I would like to see the painting. The Cherno Alpha set was quite good. I am thinking of buying all four.”

“I’ll get Herc in on that,” he agrees, pretending he’s not wincing in sympathy on the inside, and leans over to take Raleigh’s face in his hands and kiss both cheeks, one after the other, the way Mom used to do.  Mako, he thinks, will not take too kindly to that, so he just tugs on the lock of hair hanging by her face and grins at her.  “Try to get this idiot home safe, Miss Mori.  I’m sort of fond of him.”

Raleigh punches him in the arm, which makes Mako’s mouth curve up a little, which is the whole point, really.  “Yes, Captain,” she agrees.

“Yancy. Future brother-in-law, remember?”

“We are not getting married,” the two of them say together.

“I’ll believe it when I see it.  Now go home.”

Herc’s waiting by the car when he limps out to it.  He groans when he gets to sit down in the driver’s seat.  “Fuck, my leg feels like it’s going to fall off.”

The marshal raises an eyebrow. “Last I heard—”

“Okay, yes, it has already fallen off.  You still want that whiskey?”

Herc holds out a hand wordlessly, and Yancy reaches into an inside pocket of the jacket he’s got draped over his arm and pulls out the flask.

“It’s a little warm.”

The cap pops with a soft release of pressure, the temperature change since Yancy closed the bottle producing a quiet hiss.  “Doesn’t matter. Start driving.”

Yancy yawns and shoves his hand into his pants to disconnect his prosthetic from the attachments, taking some of the pressure off the stump.  He sighs with relief and looks over his shoulder as he shifts into reverse. “It’s probably illegal to drive after mixing alcohol with drugs.”

“’s illegal to drive while doing shots of whiskey, too,” Herc points out., swirling the flask a little, but not taking a drink from it.  “Just drive.  No one’s going to arrest either of us.”

Once they’re out—and taking a back road to avoid Sham Mong, because Herc is not half the masochist Mako apparently is—Herc hands the flask back, still untouched.

Yancy takes it and gives him the most confused glance he can manage.

“Roll down your window,” is the only clarification he gets, and he does it, then shoots another look at Herc, this time worried.  “Pour out a shot for the Marshal.”

“Ah,” Yancy says, and gets it, switching hands on the flask and dashing some of the whiskey—which is fucking expensive, he’s seen the receipts—out the window. Driver’s side—he figures Herc is having the same thought about Pentecost that he always did, bending to the symbolism of the man always being in complete charge.  “This doesn’t hold that much, you know.”

“Enough to share,” Herc says shortly, and grabs the thing back from him, rolling his own window down to pour out another portion.  He doesn’t say anything about who that’s for, but Yancy’s not a complete fucking idiot, so he knows.

August fourteenth was rough this year.

“Raleigh used to always like these old books about World War II,” he says idly, not looking at Herc as the other man knocks his head back and finally takes his drink. “He read one about the submarines, I don’t remember the title.  Anyway, I read it when he was sick and I had to stay home with him this one time.”

Herc stays silent for a moment, interspersing staring out the window with finishing the whiskey. “Nah, yeah,” he says, when Yancy pauses. “Marshal used to read the books too.”

“Yeah, I know.” Yancy pauses again to word his point. “They used to say submarine crews that were killed on duty were on eternal patrol.”

Herc drains the bottle and recaps it, handing it over.  “The boy would have liked that.”  It’s the closest he’s gotten to actually mentioning Chuck in a while.  Yancy considers it a victory and shuts up while he’s ahead, spending the rest of the drive in silence.

Herc shuts the door in his face after he walks him back to the room, presumably to avoid having to _say_ he wants to be alone. Looking down the hall, Mako and Raleigh’s door is just as closed, no light coming from under it.

Yancy turns around and goes back to his room to change out his leg for the wood one before he goes downstairs to the Chois’.

Alison opens the door wearing red lace under one of his old button-downs.

Yancy smiles and kisses her.

He’s a lucky guy.


End file.
